It's incredible how people won't learn from mistakes. A man rammed a car into a group of counter-protesters over the weekend and left at least one dead and many others wounded during a "white nationalist" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. One would think everybody could come together after such a terrible thing happened, but it seems the event has to be politicized just like everything else these days. President Trump has been raked over the coals by his critics, allegedly for not calling out white supremacists fast enough. Was this really the wrong response?
Trump's response
Before all the facts came out about the incident in Charlottesville, President Donald Trump sent out a message that didn't mention white nationalists. His first response was on Saturday, which is when the incident happened. Of course, that early on in the investigation, we couldn't have known all the facts of the case and neither could the president. Once it was known who James Alex Fields was, Trump did release a statement condemning racism and white nationalism. A sensible person would look at this timeline and understand why Trump's responses happened the way they did, but as mentioned earlier in this article, everything must be politicized.
Liberals' response
As Trump didn't come right out and automatically mention white nationalists before anybody knew who James Alex Fields was, the president's critics have decided to raise a big stink about his response.
Charlottesville's Democratic Mayor, Michael Signer told CNN that Trump missed a chance to condemn racism. NBA star LeBron James didn't miss an opportunity to blame the president for the incident, tweeting whether America is being made great again and if this is the direction the country should be heading. As if it was Trump's fault the incident even happened.
Remember Obama's response?
It's curious what liberals want. Have we all forgotten the times when former President Obama was quick to rush to judgment on racial issues before knowing the facts? Does anybody remember when he said Cambridge, New Jersey police "acted stupidly" for doing their job? Does anybody remember when he said if he had a son, his son would look like Trayvon Martin?
How about when White House officials were sent to the funeral of Michael Brown? As it so turns out, the police and George Zimmerman were all innocent in each of these situations. Of course, liberals won't admit it, but all of these are mistakes made on the part of the Obama administration that should be remembered by history as colossal failures of a president rushing to conclusions before facts are known.
What if Trump had responded that way?
As it so turns out, James Alex Fields was a guy with perverse views on race. But nobody should jump to conclusions before all facts are out. After all, his own mother told "The Toledo Blade" she was unaware of her own son's racial beliefs. How can we expect the president to know anything about Fields and what he believed?
If Trump had come out and automatically said white supremacists were bad and it turned out Fields was just some guy driving a car through Charlottesville, would liberals not have come after him for making that mistake? Most likely, they would have.
It's dangerous
Jumping to conclusions leads to mob rule. We've all seen that in cases such as that of Leo Frank or the French Revolution. Yes, that's right; mob rule leads to horrible atrocities. Thank goodness nothing horrible ended up taking place when Barack Obama made snap judgments during his presidency. Rational juries let Officer Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, and the police in the Freddy Grey case go. Although, if people like LeBron James want to blame Donald Trump for the Charlottesville incident, is it fair to say Obama's actions in all these cases are to blame for police being shot by Black Lives Matter protesters and police being afraid to do their jobs in several major cities leading to uptick in crime?
The country would be better off if people would allow for common sense and clear heads. Unfortunately, we all know that won't happen. Hats off to President Trump for putting up with people blaming him for something that isn't his fault.
